


More than poison and dark

by Etalice



Series: Drarryland 2019 [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drarryland: A Drarry Game/Fest, Healing, Hope, Literal Identity Crises, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18502021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etalice/pseuds/Etalice
Summary: No one ever entirely recovers from a war. The loudness of it, and the way everyone’s eyes shone with recklessness and fear - it keeps on living underneath your skin, it makes your flesh poison and your bones brittle. It doesn’t manifest the same for everyone, of course, the stain of violence and death, but it’s always there, beneath the surface, an apple rotting from its core.In which the fat lady forgets her name, Draco refuses to acknowledge his, and Harry Potter is desperately in love.





	More than poison and dark

**Author's Note:**

> _Prompt: The comings and goings of Drarry during 8th year from the point of view of the Fat Lady or other portraits at Hogwarts. Minimum: 102 words - Maximum: 1002 words._
> 
> And, as always, [Ruth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfwish) is the most wonderful beta I could ever ask for.

No one ever entirely recovers from a war. The loudness of it and the way everyone’s eyes shone with recklessness and fear—it keeps on living underneath your skin, it makes your flesh poison and your bones brittle. It doesn’t manifest the same for everyone, of course, the stain of violence and death, but it’s always there, beneath the surface, an apple rotting from its core.

For me, it took the form of forgetting my own name.

I’d grown used to being known by all sorts of other names, after my death. For generations of students, I was the fat lady and it never bothered me, not until after the war. I was fat, and I was a lady, and it was all fine. (Until it wasn’t.)

I sunk to the bottom of an inky-black sea, then, and stayed there, unmoving, unknowing. When time finally washed me up on the shore of life again, I found the castle full of chatter and footsteps. None of it felt right, how could it have? I could barely hear the loudness of life over the unbearable silence of every single death that still hung above my head.

I did the only thing I could think of, the only thing that made sense: I took to following the boy whose name everyone knew. Perhaps it was because no one knew mine, or perhaps the constant motion stilled my mind - for days and weeks, I slipped from frame to frame, always in the background of his presence.

I almost didn’t notice the blond boy at first, so quiet he was, folded unto himself in the corner of every room, but he was always there. He too let motion and the comforting fascination of a well-known name wash over him like waves, and I felt drawn to him, a companion in my absurd quest.

I spoke to him in an empty hallway, his grey eyes luminous in his delicate face. I asked him his name; he couldn’t tell me. He’d done bad things, he said, he’d been the wrong person for so long he couldn’t remember who he was. His body was white and still as marble, sat on the cold floor underneath my gilded frame. Then, he’d taken a breath and asked me for my name.

When he’d stood back up, he brushed his fingers against my canvas and smiled. He promised me then that he’d find my name for me. He spent every evening in the library after that. He’d look up, every so often, to see me watching him from the portrait of Glenalvon the Great, and he’d smile before he went back to letting his fingers whisper on the India paper of heavy tomes. I loved him for it.

I noticed the dark haired boy came to the library more often then. We had stopped following him, yet he always appeared, dark fingers thumbing through books that he never read. I saw him tense his arms, move to stand up, bright green eyes fixed on the other boy. I saw him slump back down, bury his head in his arms and exhale shaky breaths.

They talked.

The dark skinned boy finally found the courage to rise, to walk over to my grey eyed friend. They spoke in hushed tones, but the ballet of their bodies told me their story all the same, for one boy forever stretched out towards the other, and the other recoiled, with fear and hurt in his eyes.

Harry spoke to me, that night, alone in the library. He could tell me his name, and he never asked mine. Instead, he told me he was in love with my blond haired friend, calling him by a name I told him was no longer his. He paused at that, how could a name, he questioned, just stop working? I couldn’t answer, of course, but it happens, I said. It happens. Sometimes, a name is just too worn, and too stained, and it is better to discard it entirely. He smiled then and thanked me.

The graffiti started appearing the very next morning.

 _THEODOSIUS, I LOVE YOU AND YOUR STUPID GREY EYES_ , screamed the wall in the third floor corridor.

 _i am madly in love with pericles the pointy,_ whispered the words etched into the Ravenclaw dining table in the great hall.

 _Philomath the Fancy: I don’t care that you don’t have a name, and I don’t care that you won’t have me. I’m not giving up,_ sang the blackboard in Filius’ classroom.

Every day, new names in new places, but always the same words: I love you. I love you. I love you.

He does love you, I told my friend one day, in the library. How can he, he asked in a voice so broken it burned a hole clean through my chest. How can he when he’s seen who I am? I wished for hands to hold his, then, to stroke his hair and caress his face. I love you too, I said instead. Sometimes, the things we love are broken and stained, I said. Sometimes, life can’t help but crack and dent us, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be loved. Tears rolled down his cheeks at that, and I remembered a melody from my childhood. And for a while, it was that: a hurt boy, crying, and the fat lady in the painting, singing a song from another time.

You never entirely recover from a war. With time, however, you heal, and open wounds turn into a beautiful lattice of silver scars. They were so happy when they found my name, light and dark fingers intertwined under the table. Laughter and love shone upon their faces like a thousand suns. I was happy too—not for my name, mind you, I found that I never really needed it—but because we had healed, all three of us, into kintsugi hearted humans who forever were much more than poison and dark.


End file.
